FOWLERVILLE — Fowlerville first-year boys basketball coach Jim Jonas wasn’t expecting the question to be so difficult to answer. After all, it was a rather basic ask: What position is his breakout star player, Geoffrey Knaggs?

After a few-second pause, Jonas let out a laugh.

“You know, I’ve never coached anyone like him. I’ve never had somebody as indescribable,” he said. “I’ve always had someone where I immediately know, ‘He’s a guard,’ or, ‘He’s a forward,’ or, ‘He’s a wing.’ But there’s just no label for Geoffrey. He’s just so unique.”

At 6-foot-3, Knaggs is somewhat of a tweener, bigger than most high school guards, but not quite up there with the majority of forwards. He also owns a distinctive playing style, with Jonas saying his junior is not the typical back-to-the-basket post-up forward, nor is he necessarily a lights-out shooter or slash-and-kick guard.

“It really is hard to describe,” Jonas said. “He’s a hybrid.”

However one wants to define Knaggs is getting it done.

Knaggs is Livingston County’s only player averaging a double-double, scoring 18.6 points and ripping down 10.5 rebounds — up from 11.1 points and 8.5 boards in his sophomore season. He is also recording 1.3 steals and blocking 1.8 shots while shooting 50 percent from the field and 73 percent from the free-throw line.

By all accounts, he is the most instrumental figure in the Gladiators’ season thus far.

And he’s done it mostly by using his pure athleticism, which was first seen in the fall during his breakout football season, his first year as the Glads' starting quarterback, where he made first-team all-county after posting more than 1,900 yards of offense.

Now, it’s been on full display on the basketball court.

“He has this effort and this hustle that you really can’t train. … He’s been wonderful,” Jonas said. “It’s fun to just sit back and watch, because a lot of times you just go, ‘How the heck did he do that?’

“Like, he faced Sean Cobb for Williamston, who is, like, 6-foot-7, a top player in the state, and Geoffrey put in 20 points and 16 rebounds and led everyone is rebounding. It was just, like, ‘How did he do that?’ They went 6-7, 6-5, 6-5 across, and he was the leading rebounder.”

It’s crazy to think that Knaggs almost elected not to play.

He was coming off of a fun, but brutal, football season, having been the focal point of the Glads’ offense and carrying the ball 118 times. That means Knaggs took around 118 hits.

The toll those hits took on his body, along with hardly touching a basketball during the football season and former coach Fred Hackett resigning was almost enough to keep him off the team. However, to Jonas’ pleasure, he ultimately decided to sign up.

“I talked with a couple of people, coach (Jonas), and we really got along. It was a really good decision on coming out and playing," Knaggs said.

“Yeah, oh yeah, I was happy,” Jonas said. “You worry (as a coach), just about the fatigue — and the mental fatigue, too — from playing football. But the good news is he had time from when it was done until practice started, three weeks. And they’re teenagers, so they bounce back quicker. I knew he would be all right. It was just a matter of getting acclimated to basketball.”

It took a couple weeks to work off the rust, but with playing basketball in the spring and travel ball in the summer, it was essentially muscle memory for Knaggs. Of course, it helped that his shot isn’t what makes or breaks his game, and rather, he said, his “toughness.”

Fowlerville's Geoff Knaggs (right) is averaging 18.6 points,10.5 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals in his breakout season for the Gladiators this year.(Photo11: Submitted Photo)

Improving on that toughness, banging with the bigs and competing for rebounds beneath the basket, is something that he worked on in the offseason. But perhaps more than anything, it was football that helped him make another leap in that area.

“It made me tougher, for sure,” he said. “Taking hits and playing with tough kids, it helped a lot.”

Currently, the Gladiators sit at 5-6 overall after falling to Alma on Monday night, and are at 2-2 in the CAAC White. Knaggs has transformed into the go-to scorer, but the Glads are getting contributions across the board, with four players scoring at least 9.5 points.

The Glads hope to even that record up at .500 next game, and Knaggs hopes to lead them in doing it.

“It’s just a great time,” Knaggs said. “You can’t get these times back. I’m excited in my role and the people I have playing around me. And as a competitor, I love competing, and it will always be that way. So I’m loving every second of it."